Are You Leveraging and Maximizing Your LinkedIn Communications?

One of the most critical parts of making your LinkedIn networking activities profitable is maximizing your communications with others.

Each time you have a communication with another LinkedIner you have the opportunity to do numerous things that can build your relationship and bring you closer to an opportunity.

In the following paragraphs I will give you a couple of ideas you can use to maximize your communications with others.

You can use these techniques in any of your communications with other LinkedIners but they are most easily applied to your efforts in the Question and Answer forum.

In the Question and Answer Forum

Here there are a couple of things you can do.

1. Engage and further the conversation discussing the person’s answer or encouraging them to respond to your ideas. By doing this you can get to know the person better and bring the relationship just a bit closer.
2. Make are reference to their website, blog, or other asset. Visit the responder’s website and make some relevant comment or start a conversation – “How long have you been in this business?”
3. Ask the person to connect.
4. Give the person some other valuable resource you have found valuable like a website, free software or ebook.
5. Get them to connect with you on other key social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter.

There are many other things you could do but doing any of the above will help you to build the relationship. One of the primary keys to success on LinkedIn is increasing the amount of communication you have with your network and others on LinkedIn.

Do You Have Valuable Free Content to Give Away?

If you don’t have articles, white papers, or other valuable free content to give away, you’re missing the boat.

In order to build valued relationships and let people know what you’re doing without prospecting or trying to sell them, you have to have something of value you can give them. This is a key tactic in any smart marketing program that includes a list building strategy.

What’s valuable?

You may ask yourself well what could I write that would be of value? If you’re not sure, just visit the LinkedIn Question and Answer forum and see what people are asking and talking about. You should have no trouble finding a great topic.

How it helps you?

In fact, if doing this and picking topics that are common threads gives you another great opportunity to promote yourself in a positive way. Let’s say you have written a paper or article on “cold calling” and have that on your website or available via email request.

“Cold calling” is a very hot topic. Now, should a question pop up on cold calling you can answer the question and then provide a link to the paper on your website. This brings people into closer contact with you and your website in a legitimate way. No one will ever get mad at you for answering a question and then providing a link with even more detailed information on the subject.

Summary

So, if you don’t have some valuable content to give away, it’s time to sit down and create some. There is no better way to accumulate high quality connections than to be an invaluable resource. One way to be an invaluable resource is to have a wealth of great fee stuff you can pass out.

Build the Value and Power of Your Network, Make Contact

One of the best ways to improve the quality and power of your network is to start meeting the people you are connected to.

Once you’re connected to someone you have the ability to send them a direct message. You should use this ability to invite your connections to engage you in a conversation. The best reason to have that conversation is to see how you can help each other.

You’ll be shocked by the number of discoveries you’ll make if you contact a number of your connections and chat with them. You’ll discover that many people you would never think could help you actually can.

I say this hundreds of times in everything thing I write and say about networking on LinkedIn. You MUST NOT call them to sell your product or service – you SHOULD call them to find out how you can help them on LinkedIn or with their business or personal objectives.

Remember that the stature of a networker is not how many connections they have, but how many they have created. Zig Ziglar said it right – help enough people get what they want and you will have everything you want.  Pay it forward and help your connections and you receive all kinds of surprises.

I don’t recommend calling people cold – send them a note asking if they would like to chat and see how you can help each other. If they agree you can set up a time to chat and make the call.

I would bet that you cannot talk to ten of your connections without getting some real value in return. Try it. I assure you that you’ll be surprised by what you discover and find.